A new basal ornithopod with skinny arms, Mahuidacursor lipanglef, was described in Argentina source

A hadrosaur was found in Montana with marks showing it was probably chewed on by a juvenile T. rex source

Tracks from the Middle Jurassic of China appear to be the first evidence of quadrupedal theropod walking source

Several institutions in New Mexico are working together this spring to photograph, scan, map, and model the Clayton Lake Dinosaur Tracksite source

Dinosaur Journey Museum in Fruita, Colorado, has a new 6ft 4in Apatosaurus femur on display source

The Natural History Museum at Tring in the UK has a new, free exhibition, that shows off the dinosaurs of the British Isles source

The U.S. Postal Service is coming out with new T. rex stamps this year source

The Canadian Mint has a new, limited edition glow in the dark dinosaur coin of a hatching Hypacrosaurus source

The dinosaur of the day: Kaatedocus

Sauropod that lived in the Late Jurassic in what is now Wyoming, US (Morrison Formation)

Looks similar to Diplodocus and Barosaurus

Classified as a Diplodocinae

Estimated to be about 46 ft (14 m) long

Lived earlier than Diplodocus and was smaller than Diplodocus, and helps with understanding the evolution of diplodocids

Also found further north than other diplodocids from the Morrison Formation, so it’s possible they moved south over time

Had a long whiplash tail, a long neck, an elongated head, and peg teeth (but there are subtle differences in the skull and vertebrae, like a U-shaped notch between the frontal bones)

Skull looks like a juvenile diplodocid (large eye openings and a rounded snout)

Had large teeth, and looked like it was smiling

Probably used gastroliths to help digest

Described in 2012 by Emanuel Tschopp and Octávio Mateus

Barnum Brown (known as Mr. Bones) led a team from the AMNH in 1934 on Barker Howe’s land in near Shell, Wyoming. In 6 months they found about 4,000 fossils in an area of 45 x 65 ft (14 x 20 m). Brown said the site was “an absolute, knockout dinosaur treasure trove!” Brown had heard about the site in 1932 from a local collector who had found some large sauropod leg bones that were partially exposed.

The expedition was funded by Sinclair Oil, and the finds from the trip became Sinclair’s logo (the green sauropod)

Brown decided to study the fossils on location to figure out the relationships between individuas. Roland Bird suggested they make a quarry chart and draw a map to show where each bone was found

In the quarry they also found more sauropods (and the first preserved skin tissues of sauropods), as well as ornithischians and Allosaurus. Seemed that there was a group of sauropods being stalked by carnivores and they ran into a watering hole that was a muddy death trap

After 2 months of making the map, they packed the bones into 140 cases and shipped them back to the museum (weighed 69,000 pounds). However, not many of the fossils were prepared or put on display. Many of the fossils were destroyed in a warehouse fire in 1940, the WWII happened. Brown never made it back to the quarry or got to study the bones

In 1989 Hans-Jakob Siber, founder of the Swiss Aathal Dinosaur Museum, reopened the Howe Quarry and found more bones, including some neck vertebrae and a partial skull of a sauropod, at first thought to be Barosaurus or Diplodocus

In 2012 Tschopp and Mateus looked at the bones that were left from the quarry and at AMNH. Tschopp said that “Howe Quarry is the reason I became a paleontologist.” (He’s still working on the collection from the quarry, and identifying bones based on Bird’s quarry map)

They named specimen SMA 0004 Kaatedocus siberi (in 2013 Schmitt and others referred another partial skull from the Howe Quarry to Kaatedocus)

Specimen includes a skull and cervical vertebrae

Type species is Kaatedocus siberi

Name “Kaate” means small in the Crow (Absaroka) language (one of the tribes in northern Wyoming). The word “docus” alludes to Diplodocus and the Greek word “beam”

The species name “siberi” is in honor of Hans-Jakob “Kirby” Siber, who organized and funded the excavation, preparation, and curation of the Kaatedocus holotype

The SMA 0004 is the only specimen from Howe Quarry to be described and properly identified, so far. Need more analysis to better understand diplodocid phylogony and faunal changes in the Morrison Formation

Tschopp and Mateus said they believed the specimen was a subadult because of its small size and the skull features

They also said Kaatedocus “is an example of Cope’s Rule, which predicts body size increase during evolution”

Other dinosaurs that lived around the same time and place include Barosaurus, Stegosaurus, Allosaurus

Can see Kaatedocus in the sauropods exhibit on the 4th floor of the AMNH, and fossils casts are part of the juvenile sauropod in the Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda

Fun Fact:
A few dromaeosaurs are the same size (weight) as modern raptors. Microraptor is about the same size as the peregrine falcon. Velociraptor & Dromaeosaurus are the same size as the Andean condor.

Best Video (animated): College Humor Jurassic Park with other prehistoric creatures

2nd best Video (animated): Jurassic Park in heels

Best story about dinosaurs bringing people together: A four-year-old received over 100 dinosaur toys after his house burned down

The dinosaur of the day: Thecodontosaurus

Sauropodomorph that lived in the Triassic in what is now England

Small, bipedal

About 3.9 ft (1.2 m) long, weighed about 24 lb (11 kg)

Largest ones estimated to be 8.2 ft (2.5 m) long

Had a short neck and large skull, with large eyes

Front limbs were shorter than hindlimbs

Hands were long and narrow, and had a large claw on each

Had five digits on its hands and feet

Tail was longer than the rest of the body

Had powerful back legs, could reach low hanging tree branches

Maybe could have swam? Used its tail as a rudder and strong limbs for swimming

Lived on a tropical island

Herbivorous

Had serrated, leaf-shaped teeth

Sharp teeth could tear up leaves

Originally thought to be carnivorous

Name means “socket-tooth lizard”

Found in 1834 at the Durdham Down quarry

Originally described and named in 1836

One of the first dinosaurs discovered (fourth or fifth named dinosaur, though Dinosauria as a concept didn’t exist until 1842)

Thecodontosaurus was at first thought to be a weird reptile that was similar to both lizards and crocodiles

Quarry workers found “saurian animals” remains in Bristol’s limestone quarries. They took some bones to the Bristol Institution for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Arts, so Samuel Stutchbury could see them. He was away, so his colleague Henry Riley took a look. When Stutchbury came back, he asked for more specimens. David Williams, a country parson and geologist, was aso excited. So there was a race between Williams and Stutchbury and Riley to describe the bones.

Stutchbury and Williams didn’t trust each other (Williams thought Stutchbury was selfish in trying to get all the fossils to the Bristol Institution, and Stutchbury thought Williams was trying to poach fossils). They both worked on descriptions of the dinosaur. However, Williams didn’t have as many fossil material as Riley and Stutchbury so he didn’t try to turn his report in 1835 into a legitimate description of the animal. Riley and Stutchbury named Thecodontosaurus and gave a short description in a talk in 1836 then finished their paper in 1838 and published in 1840

Name refers to the roots of the teeth not being fused with the jaw bone but instead in separate tooth sockets (like modern lizards)

Originally Riley and Stutchbury though it was a member of Squamata (lizards and snakes). Owen did not consider it to be a dinosaur (assigned it to Thecodontia in 1865). Then in 1870 Thomas Huxley found it was a dinosaur, though thought it was a Scelidosauridae. Modern analysis is still not conclusive (sometimes seen as a basal sauropodomorph, or may have come before the prosauropod-sauropod split)

Only one valid species, the type species Thecodontosaurus antiquus (though many other species have been named)

Species named in 1843 by John Morris, in his catalogue of British fossils

Species name means “ancient” in Latin

Holotype consists of a lower jaw

Holotype was destroyed in WWII in November 1940 during the Bristol Blitz

Some bones survived (184 are now part of the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, and more fossils were later found near Bristol at Tytherington)

About 245 fragmentary specimens are currently known

Peter Dalton assigned another lower jaw as the neotype in 1985

Lots of other misassigned species, some now considered to be other genera, some are dubious

Riley and Stutchbury also found some carnivore teeth that they named Paleosaurus cylindrodon and Paleosaurus platydon. In the late 1800s, there was a theory that they were from carnivorous prosauropods, with similar bodies to Thecodontosaurus but with teeth that could slice. Arthur Smith Woodward named Thecodontosaurus platydon in 1890 based on this, and Friedrich von Huene named Thecodontosaurus cylindrodon in 1908, but now they’re both not considered valid

Once, Thecodontosaurus fossils were mistakenly described as a different genus. In 1891, Harry Govier Seeley named Agrosaurus macgillivrayi. He thought the fossils found in 1844 that came from the northeast coast of Australia. But it was foun in 1999 that Riley and Stutchbury probably sent those bones to the British Museum of Natural History and were mislabeled. (In 1906, Friedrich von Huene said they were similar to Thecodontosaurus and named the species Thecodontosaurus macgillivrayi. Now it’s considered a junior synonym of Thecodontosaurus antiquus.

Part of the Bristol Dinosaur Project, which for ~4 years thousands of volunteers helped gather and preserve its fossils (lots of lab, research, and outreach work)

Fun Fact:
From episode 180: Stegosaur plates form from the same osteoderms that make up the armor on ankylosaurs

Sponsors:

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And by Indiana University Press. Their Life of the Past series is lavishly illustrated and meticulously documented to showcase the latest findings and most compelling interpretations in the ever-changing field of paleontology. Find their books at iupress.indiana.edu